Weekly Report - 29 April 2010 (WR-10-17)

COLOMBIA-ECUADOR | Santos struggling. Ecuador's provincial court of Sucumbí­os this week ratified an arrest warrant for Colombia's former defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, for the bombing of a Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) camp in Sucumbí­os, in north-eastern Ecuador, in March 2008. Only two weeks earlier it had annulled proceedings against Santos. The change of tack comes at the request of the attorney general, who said the charges against Santos, a leading presidential candidate, would include remarks he made in a recent television debate when he said he was “proud" of having ordered the bombing, and refused to rule out similar action against the Farc on foreign territory in the future [WR-10-16]. President Rafael Correa greeted Santos' comments with “horror" while Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez has been railing against Santos all week. Despite the unpopularity of Chávez in Colombia, the whole episode appears to explain in part Santos' dip in opinion polls ahead of elections on 30 May. Two separate (urban-based) polls now put him behind Antanas Mockus, even in a second-round scenario.

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